KRISTEN STEWART...

K R I S T E N S T E W A R T

A F I L M B Y O L I V I E R A S S A Y A SPERSONAL SHOPPER

CHARLES GILLIBERT presents

France • 2016 • 1h45 • 2.35 • Color • 5.1

With

LARS EIDINGER • SIGRID BOUAZIZANDERS DANIELSEN LIE • NORA VON WALDSTÄTTEN

CHARLES GILLIBERT presents

KRISTEN STEWART

A FILM BYOLIVIER ASSAYAS

PERSONAL SHOPPER

Maureen is a young American woman in Paris making her livingas a personal shopper for a celebrity. Also, Maureen may havethe psychic ability to communicate with spirits, just like her twin

brother, Lewis, who recently passed away. She soon starts receivingambiguous messages coming from an unknown source.

Photo © Carole B�ethuel

/ Did you think you would work again withOlivier Assayas so quickly, only two years afterSils Maria ?No. But I knew he liked acting with the same

people, actors and technicians. So, deep down,I hoped I would. We got along really well on theset of Sils Maria and I figured, sooner or later,we’d work again on a creative project. But I hadno idea it would be so soon! I’m a good friend ofOlivier’s producer, Charles Gillibert. He’s the onewho told me Olivier was already working on anew script. I think we were in Cannes for SilsMaria. Honestly, it was the first time I’d ever metsuch a close-knit group of people who formed areal team. I didn’t want to leave. We were madefor each other! I feel very lucky. So, when Olivieroffered me the chance to act in Personal Shopper,I’ll admit I was excited, but not surprised. We reallywanted to continue our experience as a group.

/ One gets the feeling that, in you, OlivierAssayas has not only found an actress, but alsothe ideal person to embody the kind of modernyoung woman he has always wanted to portray

in his films. Can you say the same for him? Thathe’s director you’ve always been looking for?Yes, hands down. We’ve both worked with a

lot of people. But we share a non-verbal form ofcommunication that is perfect in our profession.We don’t talk a lot, but we understand one anotherand share many of the same interests, as well asa similar type of curiosity. It’s a lot of fun to workwith him.

/ How did Olivier Assayas come to you withPersonal Shopper?He told me he was writing a very simple script,

and that he was writing it for me in the hopes I’dlike it. When I received the script, I was reallyscared because it was hard for me to imaginecalling up Charles or Olivier and telling them itwasn’t for me! Thankfully, that wasn’t the case atall. Once I read it, I was very impressed. It wasso different from Sils Maria. For me, most of all! Ithought I knew Olivier, but I couldn’t fathom howhe’d come up with this story. It opened my eyesto the more hidden aspects of his personality. It’sa very contemplative film. In Personal Shopper,

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INTERVIEW WITHKRISTEN STEWART


Olivier is able to evoke invisible worlds in his ownway without naming them. I think it’s a morepersonal film than Sils Maria. It isn’t analytical; it’sa sensual and deeply human film. Olivier is acerebral filmmaker who was able to express veryprivate emotions in this film. It was really cool. Ihadn’t felt that from him in Sils Maria.

/ Personal Shopper examines uncommonthemes in French cinema, like ghosts or spiritism,while remaining quite different from Americanthrillers involving the supernatural.Yes. In Sils Maria, Maria, played by Juliette

Binoche, and my character, Valentine, are havinga conversation about movies. They disagree on afilm they’ve just seen about mutants in space.Valentine says there’s just as much truth in fantasyor sci-fi than in a lot of supposedly “more serious”films. These movies use symbols and metaphors –but that doesn’t make them more superficial. Theyultimately talk about the same things and examinethe same subjects explored by openly psychologi-cal films. It’s funny to think that Olivier literallybased his following film on a line of dialogue fromSils Maria. Personal Shopper is also a genremovie, which sets it apart from most French auteurfilms. It’s a genre film that doesn’t try to scare uswith ghosts but, instead, offers a reflection on reality.The film also asks what, in my opinion, is the mostterrifying question in life: “Am I completely alone,or can I truly enter into contact with someoneelse?”

/ What was the most difficult aspect of workingon Personal Shopper ?I play a young woman who is very lonely,

completely isolated and sad. It was exhausting tobe in that character all the time. Even when I wasin a scene with other actors, I could never reallybe with them. It’s as if they were all ghosts. I didn’tconsider myself to be a finite person. There couldn’tbe the slightest interaction between me and thembecause I didn’t really feel like I existed. Thatplunged me into a very painful state. Thankfully, Iwas surrounded by people I love and never feltalone. I was very lucky. If the atmosphere on sethadn’t been as positive or friendly, I would havebeen devastated and probably collapsed on thefloor. In the film, I never stop rushing from oneplace to another. I’m in constant movement. I losta lot of weight during the shoot. It was exhausting.

/ Maureen hates her status as “personalshopper,” as well as her rich and famous boss.But she can’t help trying on this woman’sclothes, transgressing different taboos – andhave fun doing it.Maureen is fascinated by the same thing she

hates. She is going through an identity crisis. I lovethe fact that she is not shown as a feminist critici-zing the superficiality of consumer society. She isgoing through an internal struggle. She is veryattracted to this world, where her career is startingto take shape. But she is ashamed of this attraction.I’ve felt this at times, as we all have to a certain

7INTERVIEW KRISTEN STEWART6 INTERVIEW KRISTEN STEWART

degree. The story takes place in the world ofcontemporary fashion, but it could have takenplace in 1930s Hollywood. I don’t know if thingswere worse or better back then. People havealways been attracted to all that glitters. Like tinymoths.

/ Personal Shopper deals with mourning. Butit’s also the story of a young woman’s emanci-pation, trying to find freedom by taking a verystrange path.Yes. The greatest periods of my life have always

been preceded by disasters. Moments of serenityor fulfillment often follow traumatic events. You feelmore alive if you’ve had a brush with death. At

the end of the film, even if she hasn’t found what she was looking for, Maureen is ultimately able tostart over.

/ How did you prepare for the role of Maureen?And, how important is the physical appearanceof your characters for you?Absolutely important. I wanted people to feel

like Maureen was a twin looking for the symbiosisshe lost when her brother died. So, I imaginedher to have a very simple, almost androgynouslook. Her appearance also reflects her love-haterelationship with the fashion world. Therefore, thechoice of clothing was very important. Regardingthe preparation of the film, I always only read a


were lucky. The day after November 13th, we hadto start a new day of shooting, but it was nearlyimpossible to work. Everything seemed so fake.Shooting a film in a studio…

/ Before your two films with Olivier Assayas,what was your relationship to French cinema?I’d seen a few essentials, like Breathless and

Jules et Jim. Charles, Olivier and the whole crewopened my eyes to a new world of film screeningsand cinephilia. I discovered a lot of French filmson DVD. It was a unique experience for anAmerican actress to suddenly find herself to bepart of that universe. It’s really cool. In Hollywood,everyone shares the same values. Here, in France,it’s much more disparate and feverish. In the US,films are made to entertain and make money.Auteur or art films occupy a tiny sliver of theindustry. Ultimately, the filmmakers I like best in theUS are those who share a certain idea of film thatis closer to some European and French auteurs. InFrance, one’s motives for making a film are notthe same as in Hollywood. There’s a desire to takerisks, unlike big-budget American movies, whichare only interested in repeating tried and testedideas.

Interview by Olivier Père, May 2016

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script once, then refuse to look at it again. Thatway, I discover the scenes everyday on set. I didn’thave anything to learn in particular for the film.Olivier wanted to shoot earlier in the year so Icould follow up with the Woody Allen film, whereI play a young, charming, feminine, and joyfulgirl. I felt incapable of doing both films in thatorder. I knew that – after everything I’d go throughfor Personal Shopper – I’d be ravaged and nonetoo pretty by the end of the shoot! I didn’t reallyprepare, but I knew where to look for what Ineeded. I knew where to find the trigger, and allI had to do was pull. I was ready to do it for thefilm.

/ You filmed in the streets of Paris with the crewof Personal Shopper 48 hours before theNovember 13th attacks. It’s hard not to think ofthat while watching the film, which seems to becharged with a tension and anxiety specific toour time.When I see the film, I tell myself that we’re all in

our own world, completely absorbed by thingsthat concern us, and us alone. Maureen is soconsumed by her obsessions that she pays almostno attention to the people and things around her.She isn’t really in Paris, or anywhere for that matter.It hurts when I watch the film, which portrays acharacter running around Paris – a city that’s aboutto be terribly wounded – without ever experiencingeven the slightest pleasure. It’s very painful andpoignant. I hate to put it in these terms, but we Ph

oto © Carole B�ethuel

11VICTOR HUGO

Less than ten days after Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte’s coup d’état,Victor Hugo decided to go into exileon December 11th 1851. An exilethat would last nineteen years.In August 1852, he moved to theisland of Jersey and settled into alarge house overlooking the oceancalled “Marine Terrace.”Here, between September 1853 andOctober 1855, he communicatedwith spirits everyday.The American trend of table-turning séances cameto France in early 1853, and that same year,Delphine de Girardin introduced Hugo to spiritism.During one such séance on the evening of September11th, he was visited by his daughter, Léopoldine,who had drowned years earlier. The accuracy ofthis contact with the Afterlife convinced the poetof its authenticity.

VICTOR HUGOAND SPIRITISM

From that moment on, he woulddialogue with the greatest minds ofthe past: Dante, Galileo, Shakespeare,Plato, Jesus, or Alexander the Great.And also with more abstract entities,like Drama, Death, “the Shadow ofthe Sepulchre,” the Idea… A total of over one hundred spiritswould visit and comfort Hugo in hispoetic, philosophical, religious, andmetaphysical intuitions. And breathe

new life into his inspiration.The minutes of these dialogues were transcribedinto four notebooks, only three of which havesurvived. They were collected in a work that heldgreat importance for Hugo called Conversationswith Eternity, which he chose not to publish duringhis lifetime.Until his final hour, he maintained his faith in thesurvival of the soul. �


14 HILMA AF KLINT

Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) can be countedamong the greatest artists of the 20th century,

and was a pioneer of abstract art several yearsbefore Kandinsky, Mondrian or Malevich. She wasalso one of the rare female artists of her generationto have as radical an approach to her creativity.As early as 1906, Hilma af Klint broke away fromfigurative painting after being influenced by spiri-tualism and theosophy. Through her art, she tried tograsp undiscovered dimensions beyond tangiblereality. Along with other pioneers of abstraction, sheshared a fascination for the occult and the spiritualdimensions art, all of which is manifested in herpowerful and enigmatic compositions.As a medium, she was convinced her works weredictated to her from the Hereafter. “The pictures werepainted directly through me without preliminarydrawings and with great power. I had no idea whatthe pictures would depict. And, still, I worked quicklyand surely without changing a single brush stroke.”Despite the fact that Hilma af Klint’s body of workincludes over one thousand paintings and sketches,she has remained largely unknown. Because shefelt they were too audacious, her abstract paintingswere never exhibited during her lifetime. Klint’s lastwill and testament imposed a twenty year waitingperiod after her death before they could be shown,since she was convinced they could not be understood

any sooner. This is why recognition of her work,which now forces historians to rewrite the birth ofabstraction, came so late. Though her art was revea-led to the public for the first time in 1986, she wasonly fully appreciated in 2013 after a vast retros-pective was held at the Moderna Museet in Stock-holm, which also toured to several other museums.Her modernity is just as relevant today and seemsmore at home in the 21st century. One might saythat, one hundred years ago, Hilma af Klint paintedfor the future. �

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HILMA AF KLINT

Hilma af Klint dans son atelier -1895

Written and directed byProduced by

Executive producer Co-produced by

Director of Photography Production Designer

Sound Design

Costume Designer Editor

Casting Assistant Director

Screenplay Make up

Hair Design

A CG Cinéma Co-production with Vortex Sutra, Sirena Film, Detail Films, Arte France Cinéma and Arte Deutschland/WDR

With the participation of Arte France, Arte Deutschland/WDR, Canal +, Ciné +With the support of the Czech Tax rebate, the Czech Minority Coproduction Fund,

the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government via Scope InvestInternational Sales mk2 films

Olivier AssayasCharles GillibertSylvie BarthetArtemio Benki, Fabian GasmiaYorick Le SauxFrançois-Renaud LabartheNicolas Cantin, Nicolas Moreau,Olivier GoinardJürgen DoeringMarion MonnierAntoinette BoulatDominique DelanyChristelle MeauxThi Than Tu NguyenMorgane Bernhard

Maureen Ingo Lara

Erwin Gary

Policeman Kyra

Victor Hugo Cassandre

Jérôme Chanel Press Agent

London couture house Press AgentParis couture house Press Agent

Photo Shoot Assistant Photographer Cardiologist Kyra’s Lawyer

Hotel Receptionist Cartier Salesman

Louboutin ReceptionistOman Driver Saleswoman

Kristen StewartLars EidingerSigrid BouazizAnders Danielsen LieTy OlwinHammou GraïaNora Von WaldstättenBenjamin BiolayAudrey BonnetPascal Rambert Aurélia PetitOlivia RossThibault Lacroix Calypso ValoisBenoit PeverelliDan BelhassenLéo HaidarMickaël LaplackVianney DuaultCélia OualloucheKhaled RawahiJulie Rouart

CREW CAST

18 FILMOGRAPHY 19FILMOGRAPHY

2016 - Personal Shopper by Olivier AssayasCafe Society by Woody Allen • Billy Lynn's LongHalftime Walk by Ang Lee • 2015 - Still Alice byWash Westmoreland & Richard Glatzer • AmericanUltra by Nima Nourizadeh • 2014 - Clouds ofSils Maria by Olivier Assayas • Anestesia by TimBlake Nelson • Camp X-Ray by Peter Salter • 2012- The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2by Bill Condon • Snow White and the Huntsmanby Rupert Sanders • On the Road by Walter Salles2011 - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn –Part 1 by Bill Condon • 2010 - The TwilightSaga: Eclipse by David Slade • The Runawaysby Floria Sigismondi • 2009 - The Twilight Saga:New Moon by Chris Weitz • 2008 - Twilight byCatherine Hardwicke • 2007 - Into the Wild bySean Penn • 2002 - Panic Room by David Fincher

2016 - Personal Shopper by Olivier Assayas2015 - Dora or The Sexual Neuroses of OurParents by Stina Werenfels • 2014 - Clouds of SilsMaria by Olivier Assayas • 2012 - Goltzius andthe Pelican Company by Peter Greenaway • Homefor the weekend by Hans-Christian Schmid • 2011- Fenster zum Sommer by Hendrik HandloektenHell by Tim Fehlbaum • Code blue by UrszulaAntoniak • Tabu by Christoph Stark • 2010 - Videonasty by Jörg Buttgereit • 2009 - Alle Anderen byMaren Ade • 2007 - After Effect by Stephan Geene2005 - See You at Regis Debray by C.S. Leigh

2016 - Personal Shopper by Olivier AssayasGriessnockerlaffäre by Ed Herzog • 2015 - Diewilde Maus by Joseph Hader • Die dunkle Seitedes Mondes by Stephan Rick • Life Eternal byWolfgang Murnberger • 2014 - Clouds of SilsMaria by Olivier Assayas • 2013 - OktoberNovember by Götz Spielmann •Woyzeck by NuranDavid Calis • 2010 - Carlos by Olivier Assayas

2016 - Personal Shopper by Olivier Assayas2015 - This Summer Feeling by Mickaël Hers •2014 - Fidelio, Alice’s Odyssey by Lucie Borleteau2011 - Oslo, 31. August by Joachim Trier • 2006- Reprise by Joachim Trier • 1990 Herman by ErikGustavson

2016 - Personal Shopper by Olivier Assayas2014 - Eden by Mia Hansen-Løve • 2013 - Tunnel(TV series)

KRISTEN STEWART

LARS EIDINGER

NORA VON WALDSTÄTTEN

ANDERS DANIELSEN LIE

SIGRID BOUAZIZ






2016 - Personal Shopper2014 - Clouds of Sils Maria2012 - Something in the Air

2010 - Carlos2008 - Summer Hours

2008 - Eldorado (documentary)2007 - Boarding Gate

2007 - To Each His Own Cinema (short)2006 - Paris, I Love You (short)

2005 - Noise (musical documentary)2004 - Clean

2002 - demonlover2000 - Sentimental Destinies

1999 - Late August, Early September1997 - HHH, Portrait of Hou Hsiao-hsien

1996 - Irma Vep1994 - Cold Water1993 - A New Life

1991 - Paris Awakens1989 - Winter’s Child

1986 - Disorder

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2014 - Assayas par Assayas (Conversations avec Jean-Michel Frodon)2009 - Presence

2005 - Teenage years after May 19681999 - Tribute to Kenneth Anger

1990 - Conversation with Bergman (in collaboration with Stig Björkman)1984 - Hong-Kong cinema (in collaboration with Charles Tesson)

OLIVIER ASSAYAS


FB • PHOTO

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